Archive for January, 2014

We’re kicking off a series of posts on the Illustrator team, to share a bit about who they are and how new features are developed. Our first article focuses on the team behind the new Live Corners in Illustrator CC with an interview with product owner, Yogesh Sharma. You can discover more about Live Corners on the Illustrator CC Learn pages.

Yogesh and his Royal Enfield motorcycle.

Tell us about yourself and your role on the Illustrator team.

My name is Yogesh Sharma, one of the product owners on the Illustrator team. I joined Adobe and the Illustrator team as a quality engineer in November, 2006. I have a degree in engineering but no background in art or design. During my stint with the Illustrator team, I have learned to draw — and am no longer scared of a blank artboard.

Away from work, I am an avid motorcyclist and have done some incredible tours, such as riding one of world’s highest roads in the Himalayas.

Do you have a favorite illustration/graphic design style?

I like almost all types of design, but I am particularly intrigued by the more psychedelic artwork styles.

Illustrator CC has all-new features, available today, January 16, check it out!

If you are a Creative Cloud member, just go to the Creative Cloud desktop and update your installed version of Illustrator CC to access the latest features.

If you’re not a Creative Cloud member, you can still give the new features a test drive. We’ve reset trials for anyone who has downloaded a 30-day trial since May 2013, so give these new features a spin.

For January, 2014, Illustrator CC:

Makes precision corner treatments as easy as a click and drag with Live Corners. Corners can be rounded, inverted or chamfered. Work directly on art, or input precise values into the Control panel or the new Corners dialog.

Introduces an all-new Pencil tool that lets you draw curves more accurately with options to extend paths, draw straight lines, and close paths. This new curve technology is also extended to the Brush, Blob Brush, and Smooth tools.

Provides a new Path Segment Reshape feature that lets you fluidly drag path segments into the desired shape. This new reshape technology is part of the Anchor Point and Direct Select tools, and can be accessed from the Pen tool while drawing.

Lets you save files as responsive SVG code, which can scale across multiple devices or when browser windows are resized.

Updates Perspective drawing so you can change the vanishing points and horizon line of the underlying grid and have your artwork dynamically update to match the new perspective.

Offers a convenient new way to browse and sort Typekit fonts, right in the font menu. You can choose from over 900 Typekit desktop fonts, sync them through Creative Cloud, and have them immediately available in Illustrator CC.

Supports pressure-sensitive styli on the latest Windows 8 tablet computers, as well as HiDPI displays for computers running Windows 7 and 8.

Enables you to share Illustrator settings across multiple computers by exporting or importing settings to a folder.

Lets you create a Custom Tools panel so you can now have just the set of tools you need for a particular task immediately at hand.

Just in time for the New Year, we’ve a special treat for illustration fans: a new Illustrator CC sample art piece, created by Don Clark of Invisible Creature.

Image detail from “Reality Reborn”

From an early love of skateboarding and snowboarding to founding a punk rock band with his brother Ryan in the 1990s, Don Clark has moved through life embracing his passions. Eventually, Don turned his attention to design.

In 2000, Don and his brother again joined forces: this time bringing their creative vision and illustrators’ touch to developing album covers, posters, and logos for many of the musicians they’d met throughout their music careers.

Don and Ryan Clark of Invisible Creature

13 years later, Don still does some work on music packaging—even having garnered Grammy nominations along the way— but that’s now just part of the focus of Invisible Creature, the highly successful creative firm Don runs with Ryan.